Johnny Mercyside

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Thursday, June 01, 2017

My Top 30 Favourite Crash Bandicoot Levels: #30

Hey everyone, and welcome to my newest listing. On the 30th
June the remaster/remake of all three of the original Crash Bandicoot games is
coming out. I am/was a MASSIVE Crash Bandicoot fan. I’d probably say it’s only
second to the Sonic the Hedgehog Megadrive games in terms of my favourite
platformer series. Yes that means I prefer it to Mario and Spyro, and all of
the others.

I can’t put my finger on why I loved the Crash games so
much. I love the sense of humour, it’s a style that you just don’t find
consistently in other platformers. The games are so slick, or, at least, the second
and third games were. Crash as a character is the perfect mixture of nerdy and
cool, and he’s just so awesome. I love the many, MANY different level designs.
I love the music. I love the power ups in Crash 3. I love the chase levels. I
love riding the hog, Polar and Pura. I love trying the Time Trials on Crash 3,
unless they’re super tough anyway! I just love this game series so much.

Unfortunately, since Naughty Dog sold the Crash series, a
load of mediocre Crash games have been made since. Activision have held the
rights to the series since 2008 and have only really made one major title , Mind
Over Mutant back in 2008, and a few mobile games in ’08, ’09 and 2010. For the
last seven years we’ve had nothing.

But a couple of years ago, rumours were flying that Crash
was going to return. Rumours that Activision were going to bring the series
back, or Naughty Dog were going to buy the series off them again. Either way,
the rumours were initially false, but the hype and excitement that came from
those rumours set in motion the beginnings of a fully remade version of Crash
1, 2 and 3. And to be fair, Activision have paid a very good tribute to Naughty
Dog’s original gameplay, music and level design, the game does look fantastic.
We’ll all find out on June 30th if all the hype and hard work that
Activision has put in will be worth it.

So! To pay homage to Naughty Dog’s three fantastic video
games, and to celebrate the release of the remaster, I thought I’d countdown,
one day at a time, my favourite 30 Crash Bandicoot levels. So please note,
these levels are only in Crash 1, 2 and 3. Also, there are no boss levels in
this listing either. By all means tell me about your favourite levels, and
favourite moments in the series by commenting below. So without any further
delay, let’s start with #30!

#30 Heavy Machinery

Game: Crash Bandicoot

Level: 18 (of 31, including boss fights)

Level Type: Factory

Random Fact: This was actually the first level Naughty Dog created,
ever!

Despite the level being difficult (to be honest, the second
half of Crash 1 is harder than any of Crash 2 and 3, in my opinion anyway),
this level is lots of fun. The song is really catchy, the gas platforms that
push you upwards very fast are cool and are very reminiscent of Sonic, the
steam popping upwards as a hazard is a good idea to add further difficulty to the
level, and the hot and cold pipes are a fun and novel idea too. Simply, all in
all, it’s just a fun level to start off the third and final island in the game.